Genius Is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration - What Organizations Need to Remember

'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - EdisonIt has often been said that there is no substitute for hard work. Or said another way... the harder I work the luckier I get. At the same time in today's generation of instant consumption (of information, resources, even social media) it appears that a basic truth of society has been lost or forgotten. Recall our school science classes. Trial, error, documentation, hypothesis, more trials, and clearer hypothesis' led to some of the greatest discoveries of our day.Has the pace of this examination and exploration expanded and accelerated? Yes it most certainly has. Does this mean that the same basic steps, rooted in logic, are not being taken? Not at all.Transfer this approach and evolving societal norm into the world of business - and especially into the sales realm - and is it any wonder that new sales people expect results for (what the 'old guard' might describe as) minimal efforts?Somewhere along the line we, as leaders have failed to impart the bare necessity of planning, examination, data collection and execution in the sales process. Whether it is the pressures forced on us by our leaders (and the continual need to 'feed the beast' with month over month and quarter over quarter results) or our own inability to step back from the tactical deal by deal discussions and look strategically at our customers and our strategies to swerve the market - whatever the reason we need to acknowledge that we need to put in the same level of effort that we expect from our Teams. Yes there is a concept of Leading from the back - however many of our team members need to see us leading from the front in a way that they can model before we take the strategist role.


Like Pareto's Law, the 80% of results are coming from 20% of our efforts. To truly break through to 'inspiration' we need to expend the 99% effort to get there. We need to be comfortable with the risks and learning from the mistakes we make (and we *will* make mistakes if we are doing this properly) so that we can draw closer to the 1% inspiration.Furthermore, our organizations need to be comfortable with the concept of calculated risk - allowing Teams the time and space to explore potential without the continual 'hope and prayer' approach where the expectation is that every 'trial' will yield spectacular results. Worse yet, many organizations punish the innovators by attributing a failed trail/experiment as a personal failure. We only need to look at Pavlov's dogs to see what the eventual result of behavior that drives. Simply put - allow for controlled experiments or face the very real reality that your Team may become nothing more than a pack of drooling dogs - jumping at the 'bell' but not being innovative at all.